Chapter 21

SUDDENLY THE silence was shattered. Bells rang, sirens shrieked, whistles screamed, every radio and visiset and communicator in or near the city of Kondalek began to clamor. All were giving the same dire warning, the alarm extraordinary of invasion, of imminent and catastrophic danger from the air. Seaton leaped toward the nearest elevator, but whirled back toward the Skylark even before Dunark spoke.

"Don't try it, Dick—you can't possibly make it. Everyone will have time to reach the bomb-proofs. They'll be safe—if we can keep the Mardonalians from landing."

"They won't land—except in hell." The three sprang into the Skylark; Seaton going to the board, Crane and DuQuesne to the guns. Crane picked up his microphone.

"Send in English, and tell the girls not to answer," Seaton directed. "They can locate calls to a foot. Just tell 'em we're safe and to sit tight while we wipe out this gang of highbinders that's coming."

DuQuesne was breaking out box after box of belts of ammunition. "What do you want first, Seaton? There's not enough of any one load to fight much of a battle."

"Start with Mark Fives and go up to Tens. That ought to be enough. If not, follow up with Fours and so on down."

"Fives to Tens; Fours and down. Check."

There was a crescendo whine of enormous propellers, followed by a concussion of sound as one wing of the palace disappeared in a cloud of dust and debris.

The air was full of Mardonalian warships. They were huge vessels, each mounting hundreds of guns; and a rain of high-explosive shells was reducing the city to ruins.

"Hold it!" Seaton's hand, already on the lever, was checked. "Look at the Kondal—something's up!"

Dunark sat at his board and every man of his crew was at his station; but all were writhing in agony, completely unable to control their movements. As Seaton finished speaking the Kondalians ceased their agonized struggling and hung, unconscious or dead, from whatever each was holding.

"They've got to them some way—let's go!" Seaton yelled.

The dock beneath them fell apart and all three men thought the end of the world had come as a stream of shells struck the Skylark and exploded. But that four-foot armor of arenak was impregnable and Seaton lifted his ship upward, directly into the Mardonalian fleet. DuQuesne and Crane fired carefully; as rapidly as each could, consistent with making every bullet count; and as each bullet struck a warship disappeared and there erupted a blast of noise in which the explosions of the Mardonalian shells, violent as they were, were completely inaudible.

"You haven't got the repellors on, Dick!" Crane snapped.

"No, dammit—what a brain!" He snapped them on, then, as the unbearable din subsided almost to a murmur, he shouted, "Hey! They must be repelling even most of the air!"

The Skylark was now being attacked by every ship of the Mardonalian fleet, every unit having been diverted from its mission of destruction to the task of wiping out this appallingly deadly, appallingly invulnerable midget.

From every point of the compass, from above and below, came torrents of shells. Nor were there shells alone. There came also guided missiles—tight-beam-radio-steered airplane-torpedoes—carrying warheads of fantastic power. But none of them struck arenak. Instead, they all struck an immaterial wall of pure force and exploded a hundred feet off target, creating an almost continuous glare of fury and flame.

And Crane and DuQuesne kept on firing. Half of the invading fleet had been destroyed and they were now using Mark Sixes and Mark Sevens—and anything struck by a Seven was not merely blown to bits. It was comminuted—disintegrated—volatilized—almost dematerialized.

Suddenly the shelling stopped and the Skylark was enveloped in a blinding glare from a thousand projectors; an intense, searching, violet light that would burn flesh and sear its way through eyelids and eyeballs into the very brain.

"Shut your eyes!" Season yelled as he shoved the lever forward. "Turn your heads!"  

Then they were out in space. "That's pretty nearly atomic-bomb flash," DuQuesne said, incredulously. "How can they generate that kind of stuff here?"

"I don't know," Seaton said, "But that isn't the question. What can we do about it?"

The three talked briefly, then put on space-suits, which they smeared liberally with thick red paint. Under their helmets they wore extra-heavy welding goggles, so dark in color as to be almost black.

"This'll stop that kind of monkey business," Seaton exulted, as he again threw the Skylark into the Mardonalian fleet.

It took about fifteen seconds for the enemy to get their projectors focused, during which time some twenty battleships were volatilized; but this time the killing light was not alone.

The men heard, or rather felt, a low, intense vibration, like a silent wave of sound, a vibration which smote upon the eardrums as no possible sound could smite, a vibration that racked the joints and tortured the nerves as though the whole body were being disintegrated. So sudden and terrible was the effect that Seaton uttered an involuntary yelp of surprise and pain as he once more fled to the safety of space.

"What the devil was that?" DuQuesne demanded. "Can they generate and project infra-sound?"

"Yes." Seaton replied. "They can do a lot of things that we can't."

"If we had some fur suits . . ." Crane began, then paused. "Put on all the clothes we can, and use ear-plugs?"

"We can do better than that, I think." Seaton studied his board. "I'll short out this resistor, so as to put more juice through the repellors. I can get a pretty good vacuum that way; certainly good enough to stop any wave propagated through air."

Back within range of the enemy, DuQuesne, reaching for his gun, leaped away from it with a yell. "Beat it!"

Once more at a safe distance, DuQuesne explained.

"That gun had voltage, and plenty of it. It's lucky that I'm so used to handling hot stuff that I never really make contact with anything at first touch. That's easy, though. Thick, dry gloves and rubber shields is all we need. It's a good thing for all of us that you have those fancy handles on your levers, Seaton."

"That must have been how they got Dunark and his crew. But why didn't they get you two then? Oh, I see. They had it tuned to iridium. They don't know anything about steel—unless they chipped a sample off somewhere—so it took them until now to tune to it."

"You recognize everything that happens," Crane said. "Can you tell what they're going to do next?"

"Not quite everything. This last one was new—it must be the big new one Dunark was worrying about. The others, yes; but the defenses against them are purely Kondalian  in technique and material, so we have to roll our own as we go. As to what's coming next . . ." He paused in thought, then went on, "I wish I knew. You see, I got too many new things at once, so most of them are like dimly-remembered things that flash into real knowledge only when they happen. But maybe mentioning something would do the trick. Let's see . . . what have they given us so far?"

"They've given us plenty," DuQuesne said, admiringly. "Light, ultra and visible; sound, infra- or sub-sound; and solid jolts of high-tension electricity. They haven't yet used X-rays, accelerated particles, Hertzian waves, infra-red heat . . ."

"That's it—heat!" Seaton exclaimed. "They project a wave that sets up induced currents in arenak. They can melt armor that way—given time enough."

"Our refrigerators can handle a lot of heat," Crane said.

"They certainly can . . . the limit being the amount of water on board . . . and when we run out of water we can hop over to the ocean and cool the shell off. Are we ready?"

They were, and soon the Skylark was again dealing out death and destruction to the enemy vessels, who again turned from the devastation of the helpless city to destroy this tiny, but incredibly powerful antagonist. And DuQuesne, considerably the faster of the two gunners, was now shooting Mark Tens and in the starkly incomprehensible violence of those earthshaking blasts ten or twelve battleships usually went into their component atoms instead of only two or three.

After only a few minutes the Skylark's armor began to heat up and Seaton turned the refrigerators, already operating at full rating, up to the absolute top of fifty per cent overload. Even that was not enough. Although the interior of the ship stayed comfortably cool, the armor was so thick that it simply could not conduct heat fast enough. The outer layers grew hotter and hotter—red, cherry red, white. The ends of the rifle barrels, set flush with the surfaces of the arenak globes holding them, began to soften and to melt, so that firing became impossible. The copper repellors began to melt and to drip away in flaming droplets, so that exploding shells and missiles came closer and closer.

"Well, it looks as though they have us stopped for the moment," DuQuesne said calmly, with no thought of quitting apparent in either voice or manner. "Let's go dope out something else."

They again went up out of range, but had only started discussing ways and means when a call came, uncoded and on the general wave.

"Karfedix Seaton—Karfedix Seaton—acknowledge, please Karfedix Seaton—Karfed — . . . . . ."

"Seaton acknowledging!"

"This is Karfedelix Depar, commanding four task-forces. The Karbix Taman has ordered me to report . . ."

"He has broken radio silence, then?" Seaton demanded.

"I have." The karbix did not go on to explain, either that it was necessary or that it was now safe to do so. Seaton knew both of those facts.

"Good!" and Seaton went on to explain to both commander-in-chief and commander the nature and deadliness of Mardonale's new weapon. "Karfedelix Depar, continue your report."

"The Karbix Taman ordered me to report to you for orders. There is a Mardonalian fleet approaching from the east. Have I your permission, sir, to attack it?"

"Can you insulate, against twenty kilovolts, all the iridium your men must touch?"

"I think so, sir."

"Thinking so isn't enough. If you can't, land and get insulation before engaging with any Mardonalian vessel. Are any more of our task forces en route?"

"Yes, sir. Four within the quarter-hour, three more in one, two, and three hours respectively, sir."

"Report acknowledged. Stand by." Seaton frowned in thought. He had to appoint an admiral; but he certainly did not want to ask, with every living Kondalian listening, whether or not this Depar was a big enough man for the job.

"Karbix Taman, sir," he said.

"Taman acknowledging."

"Sir, which of your officers now in the air is best fitted to command the defense fleet now assembling?"

"Sir, the Karfedelix Depar."

"Sir, thank you. Karfedelix Depar, I give you authority to handle and responsibility for handling correctly the forthcoming engagement. Take command!"

"Thank you, sir."

Seaton dropped his microphone. "I've got it doped," he told Crane and DuQuesne. "The Skylark's faster than any shell ever fired, and has infinitely more mass. She's got four feet of arenak, they have only an inch. Arenak doesn't begin to soften until it's radiating high in the ultra-violet. Strap down solid—this is going to be a rough party from now on."

Again the Skylark went down. Instead of standing still, however, she darted directly at the nearest warship under twenty notches of power. She crashed straight through it without even slowing down. Torn wide open by the forty-foot projectile, its engines wrecked and its helicopter-screws and propellers useless, the helpless hulk plunged through two miles of air to the ground.

Darting here and there, the spaceship tore through vessel after vessel of the Mardonalian fleet. Here indeed was a guided missile: an irresistible projectile housing a human brain, the brain of Richard Seaton, keyed up to highest pitch and fighting the fight of his life.

As the repellors dripped off, the silent waves of sound came in stronger and stronger. He was battered by the terrific impacts, nauseated and almost blacked out by the frightful lurches of his hairpin turns. Nevertheless, with teeth tight-locked and with eyes gray and hard as the fracture of high-carbon steel, Richard Seaton fought on. Projectile and brain were, and remained, one.

Although it was impossible for the eye to follow the flight of the spaceship, the mechanical sighting devices of the Mardonalians kept her in fair focus and the projectors continued to hurl into her a considerable fraction of their death-dealing output. Enemy guns were still emitting streams of shells; but, unlike the waves, the shells moved so slowly compared to their target that very few found their mark. Many of the great vessels fell to the ground, riddled by the shells of their sister-ships.

Seaton glanced at his pyrometer. The needle had stopped climbing, well short of the red line marking the fusion-point of arenak. Even as he looked, it began, very slowly, to recede. There weren't enough Mardonalian ships left to maintain such a temperature. He felt much better, too; the sub-sound was still pretty bad, but it was bearable.

In another minute the battle was over; the few remaining battleships were driving at top speed for home. But even in flight they continued to destroy; the path of their retreat was a swath of destruction. Half-inclined at first to let them escape, Seaton's mind was changed as he saw what they were doing to the countryside beneath them. He shot after them, and not until the last vessel had been destroyed did he drop the Skylark into the area of ruins which had once been the palace grounds, beside the Kondal, which was still lying as it had fallen.

After several attempts to steady their whirling senses the three men were able to walk. They opened the lock and leaped out, through the still white-hot wall. Seaton's first act was to call Dorothy, who told him that the royal party would come up as soon as engineers could clear the way. The men then removed their helmets revealing pale and drawn faces, and turned to the Kondal.

"There's no way of getting into this thing. . . . Oh, fine! They're coming to!"

Dunark opened the lock and stumbled out. "I have to thank you for more than my life, this time," he said, his voice shaken as much by emotion as by the shock of his experience as he grasped the hands of all three men. "I was conscious most of the time and saw most of what happened. You have saved all Kondal."

"Oh, it's not that had," Seaton said, uncomfortably. "Both nations have been invaded before."

"Yes, but not with anything like this. This would have been final. But I must hurry. If you will relinquish command to me, Dick, please, I will restore it to the karbix. The Kondal will of course be his flagship."

Seaton snapped to attention and saluted. "Kofedix Dunark, sir, I relinquish to you my command."

"Karfedix Seaton, sir, with thanks for what you have done, I accept your command."

Dunark hurried away, talking as he went with surviving officers of the grounded Kondalian warships.

In a few minutes the emperor and his party rounded a heap of boulders. Dorothy and Margaret screamed in unison as they saw the haggard faces of their husbands and saw their suits dripping with red. Seaton dodged as Dorothy reached him, and tore off his suit.

"Nothing but red paint," he assured her, as he lifted her off the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Kondalians staring in open-mouthed amazement at the Skylark. He turned. She was a huge ball of frost and snow!

As Seaton came back to the girls from shutting off the refrigerators, Roban came up and gave the Earthmen thanks in the name of his nation for what they had done.

"Has it yet occurred to you, Karfedix Roban," Margaret said, diffidently, "that, had it not been for your rigid adherence to your Code, none of us Tellurians would have been on Osnome or near it when the Mardonalians attacked you?"

"No, my daughter . . . by no means . . . I still fail to see the connection. Will you explain, please?"

"Dick's idea was to have Dunark take the first eight bars of copper and sail for Mardonale. Then we would take the next forty bars—which would take about half an hour to make—and leave immediately for Earth. Then, when Dunark arrived over Mardonale he would have been shot down out of control wouldn't he?"

"Undoubtedly. . . . I understand now, but go ahead."

"How long did it take the Mardonalian fleet to get here, about?"

"About forty of your hours."

"Then, assuming that Dunark didn't take any time at all in getting over there, we would have been gone about thirty-nine and a half hours when they struck . . . but there wasn't that much time! They must have been well on the way while we were getting the copper!"

"Very true, daughter Margaret, but the end result would have been precisely the same. You would have been gone at least one hour—which, for us, would have been as bad as one thousand."

The Karfedix Roban stood facing the party from Earth. Back of him stood his family, the officers and nobility, and a multitude of people.

"Is it permitted, karfedo, that I award your captive some small recognition of the service he has done my nation?" Roban asked.

"It is permitted," Seaton and Crane replied, in unison; whereupon Roban stepped forward and, after handing DuQuesne a heavy bag, fastened about his left wrist the emblem of the Order of Kondal.

"I welcome you, Karfedelix DuQuesne, to the highest nobility of Kondal."

He then clasped around Crane's wrist a bracelet of ruby-red metal bearing a peculiarly wrought, heavily-jeweled disk, at the sight of which the nobles saluted and Seaton barely concealed a start of surprise.

"Karfedix Crane, I bestow upon you this symbol; which proclaims that, throughout all Kondalian Osnome, you have authority as my personal representative in all things, great and small."

Approaching Seaton, Roban held up a bracelet of seven disks so that everyone could see it. The nobles knelt; the people prostrated themselves.

"Karfedix Seaton, no language spoken by man possesses words able to express our indebtedness to you. In small and partial recognition of that indebtedness I bestow upon you these symbols, which declare you to be our overlord, the ultimate authority upon all Osnome."

Lifting both arms above his head he continued.

"May the great First Cause smile upon you in all your endeavors until you solve the Prime Mystery; may your descendants soon reach the Ultimate Goal. Good-bye."

Seaton spoke a few heartfelt words in response and the five Earth-people stepped backward toward their ship. As they reached it the standing emperor and the ranks of nobles snapped into the double salute—truly a rare gesture.

"What'll we do now?" Seaton whispered. "I'm fresh out of ideas."

"Bow, of course," Dorothy said.

They bowed, deeply and slowly, and entered their vessel; and as the Skylark shot into the air the grand fleet of Kondalian warships fired a royal salute.